Now on to the things that I liked.  It was nice to try a bunch of different dishes with tiny portions, in case something we choose tastes nasty.  And every time one of the sushi chefs would place a new item on the belt, they would yell the name of the food out and the rest of the chefs would reply shouting “YUMMY!”  Hahha I thought it was so cute and funny whenever they did that. 

We got two of these squid dishes one because it was pretty good and two because my dad loves squid.

This was my favorite dish of the night.  The shrimp was o so good!

I don’t remember what this is but it was really good.

During Thanksgiving break, my mom surprised me with a ginormous fruit tart from Honey Bakery. I didn’t even know they made fruit tarts this big…

It took us a couple days to finally finish this up, but the crust didn’t get soggy at all.

I’ve been on a quest for a while to find a better tasting fruit tart but even 85 degree bakery in Irvine did not compare.  Honey Bakery is truly amazing.

I left my Nikon back in SoCal so I haven’t been taking any pictures lately.  I’ve been relying on my Canon point and shoot and it is just not the same…  I will never make the mistake of parting with my camera again!!

Here are some pictures taken in August during our OASES fall retreat at the Marin Headlands.

This retreat was pretty amazing.  The place we stayed at was gorgeous.  The air smelled so clean and fresh and the hostel was right next to the beach.  We were pretty isolated from the rest of the world during our stay there.  We had no access to computers or the internet and it was extremely hard to get cell phone reception.  Not having to depend on all these electronics was actually a really nice change.  It allowed maximum bonding time with me and the other coords :)  The food was provided by the hostel and they only use locally grown food.  I’ve never tasted heirloom tomatoes as good as the ones I had at the Marin Headlands.  All the food was really delicious and I loved how they advocated the no waste policy:  Only take as much as you can eat so no food gets thrown away.

We looked up the time of the sunset to make sure we didn’t miss it.  Watching the sunset at the beach was one of my lifetime goals… goal accomplished!

Hopefully spring retreat with the new coordinators will be just as amazing!!

There was a random animal hanging out by the rocks.  Is that a gopher?

One of the best parts of that day was the fried food!!  I didn’t get to take any pictures of it cause I think I was too hungry…  My friend and I shared a veggie platter.  There was fried artichoke, asparagus, zucchini and some other stuff and we doused it with Tapatio hot sauce.  It was delicious!!

On July 4th, my family went to Shin-Sen Gumi in Rosemead for some Japanese Ramen.  It was quite an experience since all the waiters spoke Japanese and would yell out some Japanese phrases whenever someone walked in or out of the door of the restaurant as a greeting.  Everything that went on in there was so authentic.  Just look at the cook with his bandana.

My sister ordered some appetizers, but it was so long ago that I don’t even remember what they were…

I think these were fried oysters?

The amazing thing was that you could choose the toppings in your ramen, the firmness of your noodles, and the amount of oil you wanted in your soup.    What other place would give you so many choices?!

But I have to admit… this ramen wasn’t as good as the Hakata Ramen at Manpuku even though you are given so many options.  The appetizers were great, but eating their ramen just made me miss Manpuku’s ramen.

When we saw the place that Alethia was staying at for the summer, our mouths dropped…  The apartments in San Diego are gorgeous in comparison to those in Berkeley.  All the buildings looked so new and modern.  They even had a public POOL!!  Just realize how lucky you guys are SD people…

By the time we got to SD, it was around lunch time, so Alethia took us to eat some goooooood authentic Mexican food at Lolita’s.  I got myself an enchilada, carne asada taco, and an horchata.  The taco was topped with guacamole and salsa which equals yuuuuum.  The enchilada and horchata on the other hand were just okay…  Alethia and Tammie decided to be fatties after eating our Mexican food and got Tea Station boba afterwards…

The whole day we were in San Diego, the sun was shining so brightly until we got to the beach…  I don’t know why but once we got close to La Jolla Shores, the sky turned overcast which was pretty disappointing since I wanted to watch the sunset…  But we made the best of our beach trip by taking a nap on our beach towels and watching some intense beach volleyball.

After the beach, we were off again to stuff our faces with sweets at Extraordinary Desserts!  No joke… this restaurant has extraordinary looking desserts.  My mouth was watering when I was looking through all their selections.  At first we were thinking of sharing two desserts between the three of us… but we couldn’t help ourselves and decided to just each get our very own dessert.  And boy was that a big mistake.  By the time you get half way through with your plate, you’ll get so full/grossed out by all the fat and sugar you consumed.  So please, if you ever decide to eat here, share no matter how much you think you can eat.

Here’s Tammie with her cake.  Look at how pretty it looks with the flower and syrup decorations.  They really take the time in making these desserts look nice.

Here’s Alethia.  I think this is a raspberry bread pudding.

And this is my banana cream tart.

Close up of Tammie’s dessert.

I really like banana nut bread and looooove chocolate, so I decided to try this chocolate chip banana bread with walnuts recipe from My Gourmet Love Affair’s blog.  You can find the recipe at her blog if you want to try it out for yourself!

Since I’ve never really baked anything other than box cake mixes and pre-made cookie dough, this was a big step for me.  I had to make multiple trips to the supermarket to get all the ingredients and borrow a bread pan and vanilla extract from my sister since I’m not equipped with a baker’s ingredients and equipment.

In the end, I think the bread turned out okay… considering that I left it in the oven way too long.  It was a little bit  tougher than I wanted it to be.  Next time though, I’ll know how long to leave it in the oven.  I’m glad you can’t really tell from the picture how burnt it is.  The outside was so hard hahhaa.

It was a fun experience and I hope I have time to bake more in the future!

This was the very first dish we ordered.  I was kinda scared to eat it at first since I’ve never eaten this before, but it was surprisingly good.  I think my mom told me that this was some type of muscle or tendon.  I know it sounds gross but trust me, it was ta ta tasty tasty.

This is a turnip cake with Chinese sausages inside.  This only tastes good when it’s fresh and hot, so if you ever get this dish, remember to eat it quickly.

This is cheung fun, the fried kind.  My mom loves getting this dish.  It is usually sprinkled with sesame seeds and dipped in hoisin sauce.  I personally like the plain cheung fun dipped in soy sauce and a mixture of sesame and hoisin sauce.

I actually didn’t like eating this dumpling looking thing. But it looks so cute!!!  Inside the crystal noodle wrapping was pork with cubed water chestnuts.

This is a specialty dish that you don’t usually eat during dim sum.  It’s……….. PIGEON.  I’m not sure if it’s actually the same type of pigeon that we see flying around, if it is………. don’t judge!  It’s actually really good especially when its still hot and spritzed with lemon juice.

Now here come the desserts.

This is a yummy bun with milk custard on the inside.

This dish is freaking good.  The pastry covering the dessert inside is sooooo flaky and yummy.

Inside is almond milk with birds saliva.  If you dip the flaky crust in the milk, the dish just tastes that much better.  Birds saliva is a Chinese delicacy, but I’m not sure why it’ called that.  Ew, I hope it’s not actually birds saliva…

This dessert is kinda hard to describe.  It tastes like a dense sponge hahah.  It’s a bit sweet and sour at the same time.

Oh by the way, Lion King was pretty awesome.  The props and animal costumes were amazing.  We sat in the last row of the orchestra seats, right in front of the door at the back of the theater where random animals and actors would come out during the play.  We got really scared at first since we heard rustling behind us, then we turned our heads to see whats up, and these huge animals would be standing right there.  The weird part was that all the actors playing the supporting roles were so much better at acting and funnier than the actors playing the main characters. Rafiki, Zazu, and Timon were all amazing and kept me laughing throughout the play.  Overall it was a really cool experience.  I want to watch more musicals!

Filed under: Family, Food, Home Tagged: Break, Dim Sum, Family, Food, Home, Lion King Play, Photography ]]> http://carolman.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/dim-sum/feed/ 0 Carol DSC_0754 DSC_0751 DSC_0752 DSC_0756 DSC_0757 DSC_0764 DSC_0759 DSC_0761 DSC_0765 http://carolman.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/roscoes-chicken-and-waffles/ http://carolman.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/roscoes-chicken-and-waffles/#comments Tue, 08 Jun 2010 08:46:41 +0000 Carol http://carolman.wordpress.com/?p=482 ]]> My family went to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in Long Beach on Saturday for lunch.  I’m glad we went there for lunch instead of dinner since the area is pretty shady.  I wanted to take a picture of the restaurant sign but it was all broken and missing a couple of letters.

But as for the food, O MAN the chicken was delicious!!  When I took a bite from my chicken, the meat on the inside was so juicy and fresh.  I don’t think I’ve ever had fried chicken this good before.  And it didn’t taste greasy at all.  The picture below was the dish I ordered.   The rice and gravy was just okay.

The picture below was what my mom got.  Her collard greens and corn bread was really good too.  My mom doesn’t like corn bread so I got the whole thing to myself :) and I smothered that bread with buttaahh.

This was the dish my sister’s boyfriend got.  He got mac n cheese on the side, what a fatty.

This was what my sister got.  She was nice enough to share her waffles with my mom and I.  We waited until the end to eat the waffles, so it was a bit soggy.  I wish we ate it earlier cause I bet it would have tasted real good otherwise.

After that meal, I was stuffed but really happy I finally got to try their chicken after all the good things I’ve heard about it.  I would definitely recommend trying their food if you haven’t yet cause I’m sure you’ll love it.

I made banana and nutella crepes for the very first time a couple days ago for my mommy.  Surprisingly, she didn’t hate it, probably cause I slathered a bunch of nutella on the crepe.  And I love the way my mom pronounces the word crepes, she calls them crepies hahah.   It’s a pretty simple recipe, just some flour, milk, salt, and butter.  I had a hard time getting the crepes to look nice.  As you can see there are little yellow spots.  There is either something wrong with my cooking skills or my pan wasn’t heating evenly, but I tried my best.

My goal this summer is to get a picture on this site http://foodporndaily.com/.  They choose one photo each day from a couple of submissions to post on their site.  The food on there looks soooooo amazing.  I’ll be making chocolate and banana nut loaf soon, when my bananas ripen.  Hopefully it will turn out nice :).

Summer update: Tomorrow I’ll be going to watch Lion King – the play, at the Orange County Performing Arts Center with my sister.  I’m really excited but the tickets were so expensive.  I hope it’s worth it.

Well, these are the last of the pictures I took that day at the Japanese Tea Garden.  Hope you guys enjoyed it!

And since I’ve been home basically all week due to the El Pollo Loco incident, I’ve been watching Naruto Shippuden like caarraaazzzyyy.  It’s so good.  I think I’m on episode 90.  I was so shocked when that certain someone died, the one with the spiky hair.  I had to pause the show and check on google to see if he was really dead or if it was just another Gaara incident.  I’m glad I have Naruto to watch over the summer since LOST and Dancing with the Stars are over.

Update on summer:  I’ve been sick the past week but I think I’m finally getting better!  It all started when I had some chicken from El Pollo Loco and it all went downhill from there.  It was either the salsa or the fact that I ate the chicken with my hands.  I dunno but I was in a world of pain after that meal.  I was really nauseous and I had to go poo poo a lot, the bad kind hahaha.  So I’ve just been in bed for the past week, but I finally ventured out today with my parents to Cosco.  OMG the samples today were just amazing.  The first thing we had were dark chocolate acai with blueberries.  YUM YUM!  My mom and I loved it so much we went back at the end to buy it.  Then they had bulgogi!!  Crazy huh!  Those bulgogi sauce people had a whole area to themselves with a lady on a mic trying to advertise the product.  Then there was the pound cake.  My mom has gotten pound cake a couple of times from Cosco, but the sample lady put whipped cream on it and it really made all the difference.  SO GOOD!  We opted not to buy it since they come in a pack of three and we can never finish all of it.  And last there was the spinach dip.  I don’t know why but I really like spinach and artichoke dips.  Dips are probably really unhealthy but I can’t resist them.  Overall it was a good day for my tummy :)

I’m sorry my commentary hasn’t really been corresponding to my pictures but I haven’t done anything or seen anything worth taking a picture of since I’ve been home.  Hopefully I will soon!

Now onto more pictures from Golden Gate Park.  I took a bunch of pictures at the Japanese Tea Garden since I had to pay a $7 for the admission fee.  I’ll upload these pictures over the next few days.  But just a warning, there are a lot. 

I am still so tired from walking around all day.  I had no idea how big Golden Gate Park was.  We basically walked from one end of the park to the other.  The first “attraction” we saw was the Shakespeare Garden (I will load these pics up today,) then we moved on to the Japanese Tea Garden.  The admission into the Japanese Tea Garden was a whopping $7!  That is a meal right there…  Even though it was gorgeous inside with all the cherry blossoms, ponds, and pagodas, it was not worth $7 and I felt cheated.  Everyone seemed really excited to go see the bison that were all the way on the other side of the park… so we walked our tired feet there.  It took us about an hour and a half to get there.  But after all that hard work, I can now say that I’ve seen a real life bison with my own two eyes!

Here are the pictures from the Shakespeare Garden, and I’ll upload the rest later.

I’m planning on going to Golden Gate Park with the Photowalk Club next Sunday.  I hope the weather gets better so I can take some nice pictures :).

I leave you guys with a song by Kesha that I think is just hilarious.

I was visiting my grandma at her house one afternoon when I saw these plum blossoms in her backyard.  I did a little bit of research and these flowers aren’t going to be blooming for much longer.  :(  These pretty flowers will be gone by the end of March, so sad.

Update on spring break: I went to Disneyland yesterday with Tiffany and Monica.  This was my third time going this year so buying an annual pass was actually worth it! I’m really surprised that I’m still not sick of the rides or Disneyland in general.  Disneyland is truly a magical place :).

I am deathly afraid of drops and roller coasters but I promised Tiffany and Monica I would go on Screamin with them.  The whole time we were waiting in line I was sooooo nervous.  My friends kept trying to comfort me, telling me that you can’t feel the drops at all.  I don’t know if I’m just super sensitive to drops or if they were lying, but I definitely felt them.  Every time there was a drop I screamed my butt off.  After the ride was over, I was emotionally and physically drained.  My legs felt like jello when I stood up after the ride.  I think my arms are still sore from gripping the handles so tightly during the ride.  But overall, I’m glad I went on that ride.

I took pictures of these yellow flowers right outside  the Channing Bowditch apartments on my way to Memorial Glade for some sun bathing with Tiffany.  It felt nice relaxing and listening to music on the grass for like thirty minutes, but eventually your butt gets all wet and your skin gets itchy from the bugs in the grass – not a good feeling at all.

I was walking to class when I saw these cherry blossoms growing in between the Caesar Chavez Building and the Alumni House.  They are so pretty!!

Here is yet another picture of the Campanile.  Hahah I’m sorry if you guys are tired of seeing it but I feel like there are so many more angles that I can capture the bell tower in, so there will probably be more coming your way!

This is the main entrance to the Doe Library. Inside this library to the right, there is a reading room that is great for naps.  I think it’s called the Morrison Library.  The lighting is always dim and there are couches everywhere with footrests, which makes for the perfect setting for a quick power nap on campus :).

Here are some pictures I took last Sunday when Tiffany, Annie, Hannah, and I went to eat at Manpuku.  We chose to walk to Manpuku that night cause the weather was so nice and all the flowers are blooming.

This is their amazing Manpuku Ramen.  It doesn’t look all that special in the picture but trust me, its so delicious.

Filed under: Berkeley, Food, friends Tagged: College, Flowers, Manpuku, Ramen, Spring, Sushi ]]> http://carolman.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/manpuku-yum-yum/feed/ 0 Carol DSC_0404 DSC_0406 DSC_0407 DSC_0409 DSC_0412 DSC_0413 http://carolman.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/yay-im-done-with-my-first-round-of-midterms/ http://carolman.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/yay-im-done-with-my-first-round-of-midterms/#comments Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:40:54 +0000 Carol http://carolman.wordpress.com/?p=332 ]]> Wow it has been about a month since I’ve uploaded a picture.  For the past two and a half weeks, I’ve been studying my butt off for midterms.  The first one was NST 160 which I’ve gotten back already :), then I had MCB 104.  I thought 104 would be crazy hard, but all the questions the professor asked were pretty fair.  The last one was Physics 8A which I was the most nervous about since I suck so much at it.

Another update.  For Lent this year, I gave up boba and frozen yogurt.  At the beginning of the semester, it was pretty bad how much money I spent buying boba and froyo each week.  It’s been easy not thinking about getting these two  delicious yum yums for the past two weeks since I had my mind on studying, but now that I’m done… I think I’m going to start craving it again.  I’m going to try my very best to avoid Durant and Bancroft so I don’t get tempted as I walk by the stores.  Here is a picture I took of my yogurt last semester.  The spoons from Yogurtland are so freaking cute!

Awwww I put all my favorite toppings on this :(.  Strawberries, mangoes, mochi, Cap’n Crunch and Kiwi on plain tart yogurt!!

Filed under: Berkeley Tagged: Lighthouse, OASES, Retreat, SF ]]> http://carolman.wordpress.com/2010/02/07/oases-retreat/feed/ 0 Carol DSC_0347 DSC_0351 DSC_0353 DSC_0355 DSC_0371 DSC_0379 DSC_0393 DSC_0396 http://carolman.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/laguna-beach/ http://carolman.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/laguna-beach/#comments Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:31:43 +0000 Carol http://carolman.wordpress.com/?p=261 ]]> During winter break, I went to Laguna Beach with my family.  We walked around for a bit and watched some people play beach volleyball.  It’s really crazy how agile and fit you have to be in order to play since its so hard to move around in the sand.

It makes me sad looking back at this picture with barely any clouds in the sky.  It’s been raining non-stop the last couple of days and it is supposed to last until next week.  I can’t take this gloomy weather anymore!!

While we were there, we ate at Johnny’s Rockets.  The food was whatevers but our waiter drew cute little designs on our ketchup plates.Some guy just left his doggy in the car with his roof open.

One of the things I really appreciate about my parents is their willingness to try different types of foods.  They are pretty adventurous when it comes to trying new foods, but not so much in other aspects.  We frequently go to Vietnamese, Indian, Japanese, Thai, and Mexican restaurants.

These are the pictures I took when we went to Don Jose one night to try their 3 course dinner deal.

We started off with some chips and salsa. 

And Mexican meatball soup as the appetizer.  You can see all the nasty oil in the soup, but the soup was actually pretty good.Hahaha I forgot to take a picture of the main course…  I think I was too excited to eat.  This dessert was soooooo freaking good.  The first layer of the pie is made of fudge, then ice cream for the center, and chocolate cookie for the crust.

I think I want to take more pictures of the sky.

O how I ruled at tetherball as a kid

Here are some pictures I took walking around my neighborhood.

Lately, I’ve been going to my grandma’s place a lot.  My mom goes there twice a day, once in the morning and once at night to give my grandma a shower and feed her medicine.  I tag along sometimes just to keep my mom company.  There isn’t much for me to do there so I usually just roam around taking pictures of random objects in the house.  From walking around the house, I’ve noticed that the antiques my grandparents decorate the house with are pretty cool.

Posted in Family, Home Tagged: Break, Home, Photography, Winter ]]> http://carolman.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/update-on-winter-break/feed/ 0 Carol DSC_0241 DSC_0235 DSC_0245 http://carolman.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/christmas-lights/ http://carolman.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/christmas-lights/#comments Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:09:42 +0000 Carol http://carolman.wordpress.com/?p=170 ]]> There is a cul-de-sac in the neighboring city with the most awesome Christmas lights.  There are about ten houses in that cul-de-sac and every single house’s front yard is covered with decorations and lights.

My sister and her boyfriend started the tradition of taking pictures at this neighborhood every year during Christmas.  Somewhere in the ten years that they have been dating, my mom, dad, and I tagged along and it is now a family tradition.  It’s pretty crazy to see how much we’ve physically changed each year just from these Christmas pictures.

Mo Berkeley PICS.  This is the last set I’m going to post of Berkeley this break.  Many socal pics are awaiting!!

The Music Library is by far my favorite library on campus.  Inside, the design is so simplistic, which makes it such a great environment to study in.  There are enormous windows covering the whole building so its always warm and well lit.  The view outside is beeeeaauuutifulll.  The pictures of the trees in my previous post are just outside of the library.  I would have studied here more often during finals but they close super early. 

I love how there are random spots of wilderness on campus.  It definitely adds character.

This song is completely unrelated to this post but its awesome and I’d like to share it with you guys.  I’ve probably listened to it around 50 times over the past two days.  It’s called Here Again by Good Luck Jane.

I’ve been trying to eat a lot since I’ve been home cause I’m taking out my wisdom teeth tomorrow and I won’t be able to enjoy yummy food for a while.  All throughout dead week, I had an enormous pain on the left side of my face because of my stupid wisdom tooth was growing.  The pain made sneaking food into my mouth while I was in the library very difficult.  But I hope everything goes well tomorrow!!

Here are more pictures that I took in Berkeley and I added a song to go along with it!  Autumn by Paolo Nutini (try to refresh the page if the video doesn’t show up).  Tomorrow is supposed to be the first day of winter.  Hopefully there will still be pretty colorful trees and leaves around.